onventional wisdom has it that the weakest tracks on
RJD2's magnificent 2002 LP Dead Ringer were the three
non-instrumentals. Unremarkable verses from
Blueprint, Jakki and Copywrite did little more than
detract from the soulful hip-hop symphony that the
Ohio-based producer stirred up from a series of
well-placed samples, strings, horns, organs and drums,
and the general consensus from even the most
rhyme-conscious hip-hop heads was that RJ's beats
needed no verbal exposition to blow up the spot.

Now, it's never hurt an emcee to have a chance to
flow over RJD2's soultronic sonics, and in fact just
about the whole Def Jux stable (Mr. Lif, Aesop Rock,
and Can Ox just to name a few) has benefited from RJ's
spot-on guest production and remix work, not to
mention other underground up-and-comers such as
Diverse and Cunninlynguists.

While there's no doubt that RJD2's genius comes across
even as a pinch-hitter, his deep-soul subtleties and
masterful command of mood demands the stylistic
breathing space of a full-length LP. Just ask a fan
of Can Ox's The Cold Vein about El-P's dense,
claustro-cluttered maestro act, and you'll understand
just how momentous (and rare) it is to come across an
end-to-end artistic statement from a hip-hop producer
in this era of Neptunes/Timbaland-branded Svengali
shorthand.

And so while DJ-savior purists might scoff at this
collection of otherwise quite capable stand-alone
beats, RJD2's collaboration with the aforementioned
Blueprint under the too-positivist misnomer Soul
Position does allow the new-Shadow scratch fanatic to
expand on the sonic template he set forth on Dead
Ringer, but also to prove he has the talent and vision
to create the kind of whole-cloth soundscape that can
sustain an emcee across two sides of wax.

From start to finish, RJ exhibits complete control
over the pace, flow, and emotional character of the
record. The dark, carnival-esque organs of "Inhale,"
the mischievous slapstick funk of "Jerry Springer
Episode," the cellos that add menace to "Greenhouse
Effect," then underscore sadness on "Run" - this is
all rookie shit for RJD2, as his atmospheric touch
remains effortless and unimpeachable. However, RJ
steps up his game and ups the emotional ante on "Share
This" and "No Excuse for Lovin'," a pair of tracks
that threaten to come apart at the seams from so much
new-world heartache and old-soul regret, the former
with its furious drum work and defiant horns, the
latter with its distant harp and deathless vocal
sample.

With such a pitch-perfect sonic backdrop, RJ makes it
almost impossible for 'Print to fail, each track
equipped with all the genetic material an emcee needs
to deliver either a sage-solemn message or a
quick-witted punchline (which is just what Blueprint
does on the album's most outrageous cut, the hilarious
bad-manners diss track "Jerry Springer Episode,"
wherein 'Print's boo harasses fast-food wage slaves to
the point where he declares, "I knew right then and
there she was about to take a loss/'Cause the cook
cleared his throat and gave her taco special sauce").
To his credit, Blueprint knows how to move between
lightheartedness and gravitas, and while it seems de
rigueur in certain backpacker circles to eschew
straight-forward, literalist depictions of ghetto life
in favor of esoteric abstractions or sci-fi/super-hero
parables, 'Print chooses instead to deal head-on with
real-world situations that have sacrificed none of
their rhetorical impact just because of their
mainstream codification.

However, noble intentions don't quite obscure the fact
that 'Print's version of the ghetto seems far more
bloodless and restrained than the hellish, hemmed-in
urban jungle of entrenched ghetto diarists like
Ghostface or Ice Cube. While the visceral, violent
frontline reports of those emcees function both as
social critique and blood-soaked poetic expression,
'Print's milquetoast verses threaten to transform the
trenchant sociological observations of "Look of Pain"
(from a ghetto dream deferred) and "Run" (from ghetto
violence, not responsibilities) into a lump of
Afterschool Special medicine.

Of course, Blueprint's innocuous ghetto narratives
also don't allow the listener to escape into
voyeuristic detachment, the kind of grotesque
fascination that causes white-flight refugees to
venerate hip-hop icons based on just how wide the gulf
happens to be between their own gated communities and
the brutish, dead end landscape that inspires so much
of the music.

After all, even a backwards-assed white kid from rural
North Carolina like myself can vibe with the shout outs
to Big League Chew and Masters of the Universe that
constitute the three interconnected "Candyland"
interludes, in which Blueprint lists his favorite
snack foods, cartoons, and playground hijinks in
alphabetical order. It's a brilliant bit of nostalgic
retreat from a well-meaning emcee who can't seem to
find a tunnel with a light at the end.